Meaning, of course, Robert Altman’s glorious 1975 film (not the one with Julianne Moore naked, that’s Short Cuts, not the one with war, that’s M*A*S*H, not the one which is just Downton Abbey, that’s Gosford Park.) Look for the shiny new edition in early December.

Airplane! is one of my favorite movies. I am not an unreconstructed ZAZ fan; I think The Naked Gun is overrated and there are parts of Police Squad! that could have been improved upon, but Airplane! remains in my mind one of the most consistently funny movies of the last thirty years. You know how one of the reasons everyone loved 30 Rock so much was the astonishing rate of jokes per minute? That’s Airplane!, but with the added benefit of Robert Stack. It’s one of the first in a rash of zany, anarchic free-for-all comedies that cropped up in the late 1970s and early ’80s, and it’s one of the best. Chances are that you’ve seen it (here I will succumb to gender essentialism and wager that you have seen it at least once with your father) and can recite what the white zone is for without prompting.

One of the best–and coincidentally, most radical–aspects in the movie is Johnny the air traffic controller, played by the brilliant Stephen Stucker. Johnny is part of that time-honored band, the movie sissy, and he’s the most magnificently unrepentant faggots to ever grace the screen in the entire 1980s. Here’s a few of his best moments:

The greatest movie of the last twenty years is the movie Drumline. The movie Drumline is about a group of young whimsical drummists at a fictional university in Georgia. Nick Cannon is a special drummist, and he turns the drumline upside down with his newfangled ways, which are tremendous. There’s a scene where a very attractively butch young woman does a set of one-armed pushups, and this is a scene that is very dear to my heart. In a particularly excellent scene, Nick Cannon must have his head shaved because he did not read the entirety of the drumline’s rulebook (the final rule of the rulebook is that if you cannot recite the final rule, your head must be shaved, which is as true now as it was then).

This scene is very droll, and also delivers on everything it promises. Nick Cannon’s head is shaved; Nick Cannon’s pride is brought low. He will have to rise from the ashes of his dead self and ascend stepping-stones to better things. Nick Cannon! You are a delight to my heart. Nick Cannon! How often I pretend you are not anti-abortion. Nick Cannon, it brings me joy to hear your name spoken aloud.

It is a good movie, possibly a great movie; perhaps the greatest movie. Nick Cannon gets in a lot of philosophical arguments with Orlando Jones. The older brother from Smart Guy is in it, and if I recall correctly, has a lot of trouble keeping up with the rest of the team, drum-wise. Zoë Saldana is in it as well, but does comparatively few push-ups. I do not hold it against her, but it must be said. There is a drum-off. There is a duel for mastery that prominently features drumsticks.

Did you enjoy the campy absurdity of movies like Step Up or Center Stage, and do you also like enormous fucking drums? Then you will like Drumline. It is a movie that has everything in it, particularly lots and lots of drums. Swirling drums and giant drums and medium-sized drums and droves moving in unison and sideways drums and upside drums and just when you think there aren’t more drums, there come the drums. It is better than most other movies that exist. Most other movies have an appalling lack of giant fucking drums getting just whaled on by Nick Cannon making the most serious face he can muster. Let us look at the evidence.

After a surprisingly not-awesome time at The Wolverine, the latest in Hugh Jackman’s series of inspirational workout videos, we got in touch with our friend Phoenix Tso, who recently wrote about fightin’ with strangers. And who is more strange than a mutant from the Marvel universe?

Nicole – So, essentially, I love comic book movies, and they never bother me, because things are always shiny and silly and over-the-top. And so I got a babysitter so my husband and I could go this movie on a Saturday morning at 9:30am, because OLD PEOPLE. And the first twenty minutes were okay. And then it went to shit. And I almost left, because it was incredibly offensive, and that almost never happens to me with movies. Not that there’s anything wrong with being offended by movies, I’m just pretty lalala about them. And I wanted to write about it, but what do I know, so I begged you to see it and talk to me about it. And here you are! Please tell our readers your thoughts.

Phoenix – Okay, I had the same thought as you. Like the first half hour, I thought this movie could be fun. And when the first Japanese character appeared, i thought she was a bit manic pixie dream girl-ish (to overuse that phrase) but at least seemed capable. But then, I don’t know, the rest of the movie was just offensive on so many levels.

Nicole – Yeah, I said to myself: “I see those stockings. I get where you’re headed, but okay.”